The largest landslide in the 2005 Kashmir earthquake occurred at Hattian, 25 km or so from Muzaffarabad: My colleagues and I wrote a paper on this landslide a few years ago (you can download the pdf here). It was notable for the fact that it blocked the valley – in the aftermath the Pakistan Army built a spillway to ensure that uncontrolled overtopping did not occur. The landslide has been …

Google have now released an even higher resolution set of satellite images of Port-au-Prince, this time collected using the IKONOS instrument. These images have an extraordinary level of resolution – about 15 cm – meaning that the images are spectacular. This allows us to get a better understanding of the liquefaction damage at the port, the subject of my earlier post. So, this is a close up of the damage …

As the Haiti disaster moves from the rescue phase into stabilisation and the initial component of recovery, the media are running out of miracle survival stories and tales of looting. This means that they are now looking for other stories to tell, and in particular are starting to focus on both the plight of communities outside of Port-au-Prince and on detailed eye-witness accounts. Interestingly, this is starting to suggest that …

Following up on my post yesterday on the nature of the liquefaction damage to the main container port in Port-au-Prince, CNN has a video from the site. The video is here:http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/01/15/haiti.harbor/index.html The recording appears to have been shot in this area (this is the post earthquake Google Geoeye imagery): The video clearly shows the liquefaction features, the collapsed wharves and the damaged cranes and notes how much work is needed …

UPDATE: there is a video of this site here. One of the major impacts of large earthquakes in coastal areas can be the damage to dock facilities caused by liquefaction. The process of seismic liquefaction is well-explained elsewhere, so I won’t reprise that here. However, if liquefaction does occur then high levels of damage can occur to the very facilities needed to bring aid into the affected area. Given the …

The Haiti earthquake rightly continues to dominate the news around the world, with the situation on the ground looking increasingly desperate. The news media are already reporting on the growing frustration amongst the population about the lack of aid, not uncommon in large disasters actually, but probably magnified in this case. Although every rapid onset disaster is different, in a number of ways this event takes us into new territory. …

With admirable speed Google have released two high quality images of the earthquake affected areas: http://www.gearthblog.com/blog/archives/2010/01/imagery_layer_for_haiti_earthquake.html At the moment the imagery is just for the Carrefour and Port-au-Prince areas (i.e. not the rural upland areas), but it contains the first good news to emerge from the area. This is that on this imagery at least the number of landslides appears to be small and, perhaps most interestingly, there are few …

Over the last few years a number of studies have examined the level of damage associated with the intensity of shaking in earthquakes. The table below shows the relationship between shaking intensity (MMI) across the top and different types of building down the side. The number is the percentage of buildings damaged or collapsed: Click on the table for a better view in a new window. This is then helpful …

The earthquake in Haiti is likely to have caused very high levels of damage and many fatalities. The USGS is currently reporting the earthquake as magnitude 7.0 at a shallow depth (only 10 km), which will have led to high ground accelerations for a large area of the country:The USGS PAGER analysis, which examines the vulnerability of the population is the affected area places three large communities (Petit Goave, population …

Whilst pushing my five year old daughter on the swing the other day (a task that leaves plenty of time to think!), I was pondering upon the greatest landslide papers of all time. I thought that it would be interesting to compile a list and invite suggestions of alternatives. So, here is my list, in no particular order: 1. Terzaghi on the principle of effective stressIn 1936 Karl von Terzaghi …